JP2008-202905A describes an air conditioning apparatus. In the air conditioning apparatus, at the time of cooling operation, by limiting a rotational speed of a drive source (a rotational speed of a motor) for driving a compressor that compresses a refrigerant to an upper limit rotational speed, an abnormal overheating of a control circuit or the like and an overload operation of the compressor or the like is prevented. When the abnormal overheating of the control circuit or the like and the overload operation of the compressor or the like occur, the rotational speed of the motor differs depending on the outdoor temperatures. Thus, the air conditioning apparatus is provided with an outdoor temperature detecting means which detects the outdoor temperature at the time of cooling operation, and the upper limit rotational speed is changed and set based on the detection results thereof. Accordingly, unnecessary limitation of the rotational speed of the compressor (rotational speed of a motor) is avoided as much as possible to prevent the deterioration of the cooling performance, while preventing the abnormal overheating of the control circuit or the like and the overload operation of the compressor.
However, in the above-described air conditioning apparatus, an outdoor temperature, which is detected by an outdoor temperature sensor is affected by various thermal influences depending on an installation position thereof, and therefore, an accurate detection of the outdoor temperature may not be performed. For example, in a case where an outdoor unit with the outdoor temperature sensor provided therein includes an air-cooled heat exchanger (e.g., a radiator or the like), the outdoor unit is influenced by an air, the temperature of which has been increased after heat exchanging, so that the outdoor temperature sensor may detect a temperature higher than an actual outdoor temperature Additionally, due to influence of solar radiation, the outdoor temperature sensor or the surrounding components thereof are heated, and therefore, the outdoor temperature sensor may detect a temperature higher than the actual outdoor temperature.
However, in the above-described air conditioning apparatus, the upper limit rotational speed that limits the rotational speed of the compressor (rotational speed of the motor) is determined based on the outdoor temperature which is detected under such thermal influence. Therefore, the rotational speed of the compressor is limited superfluously, which may cause the deterioration of the cooling performance.
A need thus exists for an air conditioning apparatus which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.